Part 22 (1/2)

'Good-night, gentleh here, and you can run across in tenand pick up your anchor, if it's there still Then you've a fair est--to England if you like If you decide to stay a little longer in these parts, and I' else'

We thanked hiood chap, anyhow,' said Davies; and I heartily agreed

The narrow vigilant life began again at once We were 'safe enough'

in a sense, but a warp and a twenty-pound anchor were poor security if the wind backed or increased Plans for contingencies had to be ht, when the weather see, so we turned in and slept under the very wing, so to speak, of the Imperial Government

'Davies,' I said, ere settled in our bunks, 'it's only a day's sail to Norderney, isn't it?'

'With a fair wind, less, if we go outside the islands direct'

'Well, it's settled that we do that to-et the anchor first Good-night'

XIX The Rubicon

IT was a cold, vaporous dawn, the glass rising, and the wind fallen to a light air still from the north-east Our creased and sodden sails scarcely answered to it as we crept across the oily swell to Langeoog 'Fogs and calms,' Davies prophesied The Blitz was astir e passed her, and soon after steamed out to sea Once over the bar, she turned ard and was lost to view in the haze I should be sorry to have to explain hoe found that tiny anchor-buoy, on the expressionless waste of grey I only know that I hove the lead incessantly while Davies conned, till at last he was grabbing overside with the boat-hook, and there was the buoy on deck The cable was soon following it, and finally the rustysojourn in the slio anywhere'

'Well, it's Norderney, isn't it? We've settled that'

'Yes, I suppose we have I ondering whether it wouldn't be shortest to go inside the Langeoog after all'

'Surely not,' I urged 'The tide's ebbing now, and the light's bad; it's new ground, with a ”watershed” to cross, and we're safe to get aground'

'All right--outside Ready about' We swung lazily round and headed for the open sea I record the fact, but in truth Davies ht have taken hostly booms

'It seeh; 'just when the 'Kormoran' can't watch us' (We had not seen her at all this ain, averse to reopening a barren argument Grimm had done his work for the present, I felt certain, and was on his way by the shortest road to Norderney and Me west, our boom squared away and the island sand-dunes just apparent under our lee Then the breeze died to theswell

Consuet on I saw fatality in this failure of wind, after a fortnight of unprofitable enerally had too h for our purpose I tried to read below, but the vile squirting of the centre-board drove o any faster?' I burst out once I felt that there ought to be a pyra jibs, and what not

'I don't go in for speed,' said Davies, shortly He loyally did his best to 'shove her' along, but puffs and cal in the dinghy for two hours in the afternoon that we covered the length of Langeoog, and crept before dark to an anchorage behind Baltruhbour on the west Strictly, I believe, we should have kept the sea all night; but I had not the grit to suggest that course, and Davies was only too glad of an excuse for threading the shoals of the Accu tide The at as the day wore on; but we had scarcely anchored tenin from seaward, sed us up Davies was already afield in the dinghy, and I had to guide hihorn, whoseflats, and brought the round us, a weird invisible chorus toheavy still at daybreak on the 20th, but dispersed partially under a catspaw froht o'clock, in time for us to traverse the boomed channel behind Baltruet far to-day,' said Davies, with philosophy 'And this sort of thing lass thirty point five and steady That gale was the last of a stormy equinox'

We took the inside route as a matter of course to-day It was now the shortest to Norderney harbour, and scarcely less intricate than the Wichter Ee, which appeared to be almost totally blocked by banks, and is, in fact, the most impassable of all these outlets to the North Sea But, as I say, this sort of navigation, always puzzling toin hazy weather Any atteiddy So I slaved at the lead, varying rounded somewhere I had two rests before two o'clock, one of an hour, e ran into a patch of windless fog; another of a few moments, when Davies said, 'There's Norderney!' and I saw, sur slope of weedy sand, still ith the receding sea, a cluster of sandhills exactly like a hundred others I had seen of late, but fraught with a new and unique interest

The usual forot now?' checked my reverie, and 'Helm's a-lee,' ended it for the time We tacked on (for the wind had headed us) in very shoal water

Suddenly Davies said: 'Is that a boat ahead?'